Engineering complex fluids in biology and medicine

拟议的项目将评估与一个共同主题相联系的几个互补项目的可行性：基于对复杂流体的控制和理解的设备和工艺工程。资源将针对三个项目领域：生物处理、细胞学和心血管监测。这些领域虽然在潜在应用方面各有不同，但在复杂流体行为的基本方面有共同之处。所有这些都试图利用流体现象的复杂性质来生产分析或处理生物材料(如细胞、细菌和组织)的设备：1.活激光--“活激光”--将通过微尺度激光通过单个细胞，从而改变激光特性。因此，这种装置是一种生物/固体混合装置，其中活细胞成为激光的一部分，因为激光腔周围有多路光，可以实现对细胞的极其灵敏的光学询问。近旋节亚稳态流体生物处理--目前对液体中的简单生物系统在近旋节负压条件下的行为一无所知，但已知形式的细菌甚至病毒不太可能在不经历重大不利影响的情况下经受住这种条件的短暂暴露，包括细胞壁和细胞膜的显著破裂。预计在暴露于这种条件下后，几乎没有细菌形式能够存活下来，如果确实有的话。我们建议研究在细菌细胞溶液中产生接近旋节水平的负压作为确保细胞死亡的一种手段的可行性，从而为高价值产品的杀菌新技术建立平台。心血管设备-患者特有的全身动脉血液和空气流动的心血管流体模型已经开发出来。我们将测试使用这些模型通过逆向工程方法开发新的诊断设备设计的可行性。这些将包括初步架构，突出主要设计问题，并确定检测动脉系统微结构变化(狭窄和动脉瘤)的可能性，或精确定位人体下部呼吸道分支的狭窄位置。

The proposed project will assess the feasibility of several complementary projects linked to a common theme: device and process engineering based on control and understanding of complex fluids. Resources will target three project areas: bio-processing, cytometry and cardio-vascular monitoring.These areas, while diverse in terms of their potential applications, have commonality in terms of fundamental aspects of complex fluid behaviour. All seek to engineer the complex properties of fluidic phenomena to produce devices to analyse or process biological materials such as cells, bacteria and tissue:1. The living laser - The 'living laser' will pass single cells through a micro-scale laser thus changing the lasing characteristics. This device is thus a hybrid biological/solid state device in which living cells become a part of the laser, because of the multiple passes of light around the laser cavity extremely sensitive optical interrogation of the cells can be achieved.2. Near-spinodal metastable fluid bio-processing - Nothing is presently known about the behaviour of even simple biological systems in liquids under near-spinodal conditions of negative pressure but known forms of bacteria and even viruses are unlikely to withstand brief exposure to such conditions without experiencing significant adverse effects, including pronounced rupture of cell walls and membranes. It is anticipated that few, if indeed any, forms of bacteria could remain viable following exposure to such conditions. We propose investigating the feasibility of generating near-spinodal levels of negative pressure within solutions of bacterial cells as a means of ensuring cell death and hence establishing the platform for a new technique for the sterilization of high value products.3. Cardiovascular devices - Patient specifc cardiovascular fluidic models of whole body arterial blood and air-flows have been developed. We will test the feasibility of using these models to develop new diagnostic device designs via reverse engineering approaches. These would involve preliminary architectures highlighting the major design issues and scoping the potential for detection of microstructural changes in the arterial system (stenosis and aneurysm) or pinpointing the location of a constriction at the lower human airway branches.